


The One With the Christmas Presents

by andloveexists



Category: Dead Poets Society (1989)
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Presents, F/M, Inspired by Friends (TV), M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-22
Updated: 2020-05-22
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:29:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24324313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andloveexists/pseuds/andloveexists
Summary: Charlie and Knox try to find their Christmas presents from Neil and rope Todd in along the way.
Relationships: Charlie Dalton & Steven Meeks, Charlie Dalton/Steven Meeks, Todd Anderson & Neil Perry, Todd Anderson/Neil Perry
Comments: 3
Kudos: 59





	The One With the Christmas Presents

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this at the end of 2018/beginning of 2019 and just found it in my Google Drive. It's not Christmastime, but I thought I'd share anyway. 
> 
> Idea based on that Friends episode “The One With the Routine”. I do not own any recognizable dialogue, plot, or characters from Friends nor Dead Poets Society. 
> 
> I’ve lit been dreaming of a Friends/DPS--crossover--thing forever. 
> 
> Also, this is a modern AU where the boys are graduated from Welton, livin in a house together, and attending University as juniors/seniors.

Charlie and Knox try to find their Christmas presents from Neil and rope Todd in along the way. 

Idea based on that Friends episode “The One With the Routine”. I do not own any recognizable dialogue, plot, or characters from Friends nor Dead Poets Society. 

I’ve lit been dreaming of a Friends/DPS--crossover--thing forever. In honor of the holidays (though I’m late on Christmas, sorry!) I got the idea to write this now. Yay! I’ve tried to throw in a few Friends references which I’ll list at the end. 

Also, this is a modern AU where the boys are graduated from Welton, livin in a house together, and attending University as juniors/seniors.  
_

Same procedure as every Saturday morning: a pot of coffee begins to brew, and five minutes later, the ever-cheery smiling mess that is Neil Perry emerges from upstairs, pours the sweet-smelling liquid into a travel mug, and plants a kiss square on Todd’s forehead before bounding out the door.  
“Bye, love!” He shouts from the porch, and Todd can’t help but blush. His routine’s a bit different: get downstairs in time to see Neil off to his weekend shift at the campus coffee shop and kick back on the couch with a cup of tea and his laptop.  
This time, however, his early morning browsing is interrupted by Knox Overstreet and Charlie Dalton. Todd’s nearly ejected from his seat when the two practically leap downstairs the moment the door closes behind Neil.  
“Okay, Knoxious, you look in the kitchen, I’ve got the living room.” Charlie declares as he makes a beeline for the couch. Todd actually has to jump out of the way as the purposeful character storms past him.  
“Uh, what’s going on here?”  
“Yeah, Todd, why don't you take a walk? This doesn’t concern you,” Knox suggests, unphased, as he approaches the kitchen.  
“We are looking for our Christmas gifts from Neil.” Charlie reveals triumphantly (literally with his hands on his hips).  
Knox shoot him a look. “Dumbass! You’re not supposed to tell him.”  
“What? That’s awful!” Todd exclaims.  
“No, it’s not. We do it every year.” Pots and pans begin to clank in the kitchen. Meanwhile, Charlie tears the couch apart, and Todd shudders at the inevitable mess that’s about to manifest.  
“Oh, well that makes it not terrible,” he scoffs.  
“We never find them, though,” Knox yells back. Now, glasses are clanking around. “He’s always bested us, that wily minx.”  
“Don’t worry, Todd,” Charlie assures. “We’re just gonna search down here for an hour, and then we’re gonna go upstairs to look, okay?”  
“No, not okay! You can’t look for Neil’s presents!”  
“But we have to!” Charlie near-shouts, and Todd winces. A pillow goes flying and knocks over Charlie’s dog sculpture. Todd remembers Charlie picked up one day at the Saturday Market, and it took Meeks a solid week of protesting to convince Charlie to not place it up in their bedroom. Now, it stood shoved back in a corner of the living room, and Todd tried not to watch whenever Charlie insisted on using it as a chair.  
“No, you don’t have to, and you can’t because I live here too.”  
“Todd, honey, we’ve been doing this since before you even moved in.”  
“Wait, I have an idea!” Charlie pipes up. “You should look with us!”  
“What?” Todd shakes his head. “Why?”  
Knox reappears in the kitchen doorway. “Todd, aren’t you worried about what to get Neil for Christmas?”  
Todd grins. “No, I have a great gift idea for him.”  
“Oh, that’s it?” Knox snickers. “A great idea?! I mean, what if he gets you a great present, two medium presents, and a bunch of little presents? And you’ve just gotten him one present?! That’s just gonna make Neil feel bad.”  
“Why would you do that to him, Todd?” Charlie defends. “Why? Why?”  
Todd hesitates, but anxiety gets the best of him. “I-if I help, we can find them before he gets home!”  
“That’s the spirit, Toddy!” Charlie turns back to the poor, pillowless couch. “Wait, guys, here’s one!”  
He rips a green bag out from between the cushions, and a set of books goes flying.  
“Ooh, who’s it for?” Knox appears at Charlie’s side.  
“No one,” Todd declares as he peers at the book cover. “This is Neil’s favorite copy of Leaves of Grass. He’s played us.”  
“What?” Charlie paws at the book, and a note falls out as Todd snatches the book away. Charlie rips it from the air. “Dear losers: Do you really think I’d hide presents in the couch? P.S. Todd, I knew they’d break you.”  
“Hey!” Todd near-shouts.  
“Damn, he’s onto us.”  
“Wait, Neil has a favorite copy of Leaves of Grass? How many damn copies of that book does he have?”  
“Well, there's the copy he bought, and the one Keating gave him as a Welton graduation gift, and the special edition that came out last year…”  
“Oh my God, no more,” Charlie shakes his head. “Back to searching for the gifts.”  
“What are you guys doing?” Cameron’s footsteps pound down the stairs, followed by the light pitter-patter of Pitts and Meeks, who know very well what’s going on.  
“Nothing,” the three searchers shout in unison. Cameron narrows his eyes at them.  
“Why is the living room a total fucking mess, then?”  
Silence. Charlie strains his neck to peer at the clock in the kitchen, and stifles a sigh of relief when he sees the time. “Shit, Cameron, aren’t you late for work?”  
“Am I?” Cameron’s eyes go wide and shoot down to his watch. “Shit. Catch you guys later,” he says, heading out the door without a second glance at the trashed living room.  
“You guys find the gifts yet?” Meeks asks, heading over in to Charlie’s open arms. “Hey, baby.”  
“No. We first had to convince Todd to help us,” Charlie responds. He wraps Meeks into the oversized cardigan he’s wearing. The presents are forgotten to the two of them for a moment.  
“Wait,” Charlie gasps. “Cameron’s room! We never search Cameron’s room!”  
“Doesn’t Cameron lock his room?” Todd interrupts.  
“Yeah, that’s why we’ve never looked there, Charlie,” Knox responds.  
“True, which would make it the perfect place to hide gifts!”  
“Yeah, but it also means we can’t get in.”  
“Lucky for you,” Charlie smirks and pulls a bobby pin from his hair. “I know how to lock pick.”  
Todd, Knox, and Pitts gape at him. “Where did that come from, Charlie?” Knox questions.  
“I was simply prepared for this moment.”  
“I didn’t think you could get any more extra.”  
The new group of five makes a beeline for the stairs, and then Cameron’s room. Charlie kneels at Cameron’s door and begins poking around in the lock.  
“Charlie, don’t break the lock,” Knox suggests. “Cameron will literally kill you.”  
It becomes apparent that he doesn’t know what he’s doing when the pin snaps in half.  
“I knew we shouldn’t let that bastard get his own room,” Charlie groans. “Hey, maybe we could unscrew the door handle.”  
“Yeah, that won’t get us in trouble.”  
“Fine,” Charlie complies. “Back downstairs it is.”  
“I always forget about this picture,” Knox remarks. “We like Uncle Walt a little to much in this house.” Between Cameron’s bedroom and Neil and Todd’s shared bedroom, Neil had hung the framed photo of Walt Whitman that Keating had given to the boys at graduation. Just so his eyes could follow the boys everywhere.  
“I can’t believe you guys let that thing be hung upstairs, but my precious dog his stuck downstairs,” Charlie whines.  
“Whit is a legend. Your dog is just creepy.”  
“At least he’s not a madman!”  
“Whatever. Let's get back to the gifts,” Knox suggests, and everyone retreats downstairs. 

An hour later, Meeks and Pitts are lost to the cause, instead taking up refuge in the destroyed living room to watch Planet Earth. Todd’s retreated to the kitchen, and the smell of cookies begins wafting through the house.  
“Smells good, Todd!” Pitts shouts, sending Knox downstairs.  
“Mmm, Todd, cookies?” he reaches for the dough at Todd’s fingertips.  
Todd smacks his hand away. “Did you guys find the gifts?”  
“Charlie whipped out Pitts’ screwdriver. Cameron’s door handle is history.”  
Todd’s eyes widen. “Excuse me?” He hisses, lest Pitts hear and make the whole situation worse.  
Knox grins and nabs a bite of cookie dough from the distracted Todd. He nips at Knox, but the bite of cookie dough is history. “Let’s go see what he found,” he says before dashing up the stairs for Todd to follow. Upstairs, Cameron’s door handle lies forgotten on the floor, surrounded by screws, and his door remains wide open.  
“Guys, here they are!” Charlie calls from under Cameron’s bed.  
“No way, no way,” Todd exclaims, forgetting the sketchy situation for just a moment.  
“Oh God, don’t look directly at them!”  
Charlie pushes the pile of gifts out from under the bed, and Knox quickly begins distributing them.  
“Alright, let's open these bad boys,” Charlie declares. He’s already got a tear made in the side of his huge gift.  
Todd hesitates. “Wait, we can’t do this,” Todd says, setting his gift on the bed firmly.  
Knox and Charlie scowl at him. “What do you mean ‘we can’t do this’?” Charlie questions.  
“I don’t wanna know what Neil got me. I mean, I know he probably worked really hard on whatever the gift is, and he wanted to surprise me.” He can see it now: inside is probably a beautiful journal, or book, or something that Neil thought long and hard about to make sure Todd would be excited on a magical Christmas morning. And he realized that while he would probably still worry that Todd’s own gift to Neil wouldn’t be near as amazing as whatever Neil gave to Todd, it still wasn’t right to open the gift now. “This is not what Christmas is about, you know?”  
“No, we don’t know. Knox, what did you get?” Charlie peers in Knox’s direction.  
“Stop it! No one is opening anything, okay? You guys know how hard Neil worked on getting these gifts. I know it’s important to him to see the look on our faces when we open them. Come on, this was fun, but the game’s over now.”  
Charlie scowls, but sets the gift down. Knox follows suit.  
“Thank you guys.”  
“These are Cameron’s gifts to us, actually,” Knox says upon closer inspection of his box. “So I guess Neil’s bested us again.”  
Todd grins in relief.  
Loud, heavy footsteps rush down the hall, and all three boys jump to their feet. “You guys!” Pitts calls from downstairs. “Cameron’s home!”  
“Shit,” Charlie says as he begins shoving the gifts back under the bed. “Todd, someone, go distract him. We gotta screw that door handle back on.”  
Knox sets to making the bed as, surprisingly quickly, Charlie manages to fix the whole handle situation.  
“Thank God,” Charlie wipes the sweat from his forehead (albeit a little over-dramatically). Knox has to keep from rolling his eyes.  
“A job well done.” Knox says, leaning against the edge of the door. He sends it flying backways, causing the hallway to rattle. Neil’s photo of Walt Whitman goes askew in the process.  
“Geez, tryna break the house?” Charlie asks, but his eyes go to the photo. “Holy shit, Knoxious, there’s a hole in the wall.”  
“What?”  
“There’s something in here.” Charlie digs around for a moment before grabbing hold of something small, square, squishy, and velvety.  
He pulls it out, and both boys’ mouths fall to the floor.  
“Its a ring!” Knox hisses. Charlie furrows his brows at Knox, but nods anyway. “Quick, put it back. Todd’ll be up here any moment.”  
Pitts peeks his head around the corner. “Did you guys fix the door? Cameron’s downstairs, currently boring Todd with a description of every check he processed today. ‘One of them had whales on it!’” He rolls his eyes. “Holy shit, why’s there a hole in the wall?”  
“Nothing. No reason.” Charlie fixes Walt, and he and Knox rush past Pitts to the stairs. “Wait, close Cameron’s door.”  
Charlie whirls around to the sight of Pitts, in the doorway to Cameron’s room, wielding the tiny red velvet box and grinning like he just found the holy grail.  
“There was something in there!”  
Charlie practically pounces on him, and they go stumbling back into Cameron’s room. Pitts groans.  
“What the hell, Charlie? I hit my head.”  
“Dumbass, we can’t let Todd see that!” Charlie exclaims and slams the door shut.  
Pitts’ looks dumbfounded.  
“It’s an engagement ring,” Charlie explains, exasperated. Pitts’ eyes go wide.  
“Neil’s gonna…?”  
“Yes! Now for fuck’s sake, put that away before Todd sees.”  
Pitts’ eyes drift to his hand with wide surprise, and then back to Charlie. He nods and the two rush out of the room.  
“Enough of this gift finding shit,” Todd declares from the stairwell. Charlie slides in front of Walt and Pitts tucks the ring into one of his long sweater sleeves, and luckily, Todd doesn't suspect a thing. “Come downstairs and help me tidy up. Let’s make dinner.” 

Several hours, three ‘Planet Earth’ episodes, and one delicious dinner (thanks to Todd’s hidden cooking skills) later, the gift search has been long forgotten by Todd, just as it’s normally forgotten by Knox and Charlie.  
“I think Neil is going to propose to Todd,” Charlie whispers. He’s on one side of the bed, tucking in the covers to Meeks’ liking, and Meeks mirrors him on the left  
“Really? Honestly, it’s about time.”  
“I can’t believe he didn’t tell me,” Charlie shakes his head. Meeks moves to the other side of the room, approaching Charlie, sliding his hands up and under the taller boy’s knit sweater. Charlie pulls the redhead in, his arms relaxing around Meeks’ shoulders like a reflex.  
“You know Neil. Dramaticity is his specialty.”  
Meeks burrows his face in Charlie’s neck, the latter soaking up the sweet smell of Meeks’ coarse red hair. Meeks snuggles deeper into Charlie’s chest. “Charlie, do you ever think about us getting married?”  
“Of course.”  
“Really?”  
“Yeah! We’re seniors, halfway through our school goals...now isn’t the time. I think about it all the time though, you know.”  
“Like what?”  
“Like how I can’t wait to move to a little house outside the city with our adopted 2.5 kids...we can watch them run around outside in our big yard with our big dog on a swing set that we build during paternity leave. Of course, we’ll have a room over the garage where Knox can grow old…”  
Meeks snickers. “It’s perfect. You’re perfect.”  
“I love you.”  
“One more thing…” Meeks hesitates.  
“What is it?”  
“When you said dog, you meant cat, right?” 

“Saturday nights are my favorite.”  
Todd sets two mugs full of hot chocolate on the coffee table in front of Neil. “Alright, I got the hot chocolate, you got the blankets?”  
“Yup. Threw them in the dryer to warm them up.” Neil raises up the fuzzy blanket, inviting Todd to cuddle up.  
“Perfect.”  
“It’s midnight. Merry Christmas, love.”  
“Merry Christmas.” Todd runs his fingers through the cropped back of Neil’s hair, one of his favorite spots. “I love you.”  
“Ready for your gift?” Neil grins, and Todd nods excitedly.  
Neil reaches behind the couch and hands Todd his gift.  
“Did you wrap this in a scarf?”  
“I did. It’s an extra little gift for you.”  
Todd grins. He peels the scarf, covered with famous poetry lines, from the gift. Underneath is a beautiful vintage typewriter, deep red, with a long note already typed.  
“Oh my God, Neil, it’s beautiful. You’ll make me cry.”  
“That was my intention,” Neil smirks.  
Todd pushes the typewriter away and leaps onto Neil, kissing him. They both laugh.  
“How did I get so lucky to have you?” Neil asks.  
Todd jumps from the couch. “Okay, time for your gift. Come here.”  
Todd leads Neil to the center of the living room (which has been restored, thankfully) and hands him a little red velvet box.  
“Todd, is this…?”  
“Just open it.”  
Neil cracks the box open to peek inside. “Oh, my God.”  
Todd crouches down to get on one knee as Neil completely opens the box. Inside is a gorgeous gold ring, complete with a small emerald in the center.  
“I know everyone expects that you’d be the first to do this. But Neil, I know now and forever that I never want to be a day without you. I am so thankful that our paths happened to intertwine what seems so long ago. I love you.”  
Tears begin to stream down both boys’ faces.  
“Will you marry me?”  
“Get up.”  
Todd does as told, and Neil pulls him in tight, both crying. “Todd Anderson. No one makes me feel all of the crazy wonderful things you have. I love you so much. Of course I’ll marry you.”  
The room fills with years of emotion, love, and memory. From the stairs, five faces struggle to keep tears off their cheeks, but it’s a worthless cause.  
When Todd and Neil finally separate, the room fills with cheers.  
“How long have you guys been there?” Neil asks, as Charlie approaches for a hug.  
“A while.”  
A group hug ensues. “Merry Christmas, you guys,” someone calls out, and everyone lets out a yawp.


End file.
